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Think Like a Coach
Teach the missing skill instead of restating the rule.
3 min read
Read this slowly
A child who can't yet do something isn't refusing. They're waiting to be taught.
The idea
If a child couldn't read a word, we wouldn't say the word louder. We'd teach them how.
Behaviour rarely gets the same courtesy. We restate the expectation, as though the problem were that they hadn't heard it.
A coach looks at the same moment and asks what's missing. How to start something hard. How to lose. How to ask for help without shame.
Then they build it, in small pieces, over time.
Why this matters
Consequences suppress a behaviour. They don't install the skill that was absent, which is why the same incident keeps returning.
Thinking in skills also changes how setbacks feel. A relapse stops being a betrayal and becomes information about the practice.
In the classroom
A child pushes their work away whenever something feels hard.
The work becomes getting stuck well. A phrase to use, a card to raise.
Asking for help becomes the skill being practised.
Read this slowly
Punishment ends a moment. Teaching ends a pattern.
Take this with you
Teach the skill, and the behaviour takes care of itself.